FAQ

The Arab Development Portal (ADP) is an initiative of the Coordination Group of Arab, National and Regional Development Institutions (CG), the Islamic Development Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) developed in partnership with the UNDP. The initiative aims to enhance the knowledge of people on development in the Arab region. Data and knowledge resources on development issues in the Arab World are often outdated, of irregular reliability, and fragmented across multiple international, regional and local sources. By having access to and effectively using knowledge resources, individuals, firms and communities can improve their individual and collective well-being, thereby contributing to sustainable development.

ADP is a comprehensive, bilingual one-stop-shop knowledge resource that aims to (1) improve the scope, depth, reliability and availability of high-quality development knowledge through providing access to credible data produced by international and regional organizations, as well as national statistical offices, (2) serve as a research and knowledge repository for knowledge producers and users, and (3) act as an interactive knowledge platform for communities and interest groups.

The Arab Development Portal (ADP) provides all users with easy access to an interactive database, publications depository, learning tools and news on development issues in Arab countries. The ADP Blog hosts web commentaries from regional and international experts and other contributors.

The Arab Development Portal (ADP) aims to provide all users with easy access to an interactive database on development issues in Arab countries. The ADP database has been built on data published by national statistical offices of Arab countries and other governmental agencies, in addition to international organizations. Depending on data availability, it offers recent data (2000 onward) on eleven thematic topics.

Users can easily access statistics either published by national sources or international organizations. The ADP advises users interested in a specific country to opt for the national source as it displays official statistics published by the respective country. While it advises users interested in conducting comparative analysis or looking for data on more than one country, to select data listed under international source. The dataset of the latter is based on the same methodology and ensures that consistent analysis can be conducted. With regard to indicators collected from national sources, the ADP introduced minimal interference and has only contributed, when applicable, to unifying the terminology across the indicators. The ADP database is not exhaustive and encourages users to check the websites of the original sources for the complete list of indicators.

The ADP interactive database allows users either to visualize or export data. For a detailed explanation about how to use the ADP database, please refer to help box on the Data Visualization page or Data Export page. Click here to watch the video tutorial.

In general, data is updated on a bi-annual basis, unless major changes are introduced to official datasets published by national statistical offices or other governmental agencies. The ADP database clearly states the last updated date for each indicator.

Given the present scope of the ADP, it does not produce data on its own. What it does is that it publishes a selective list of indicators originally published by either international development agencies or national statistical offices. The value-added of the ADP is it publishes the indicators in a format (visualization, excel) that can be easily shared and used by everyone, allowing users to save time copying data from static pdf files. In short, the ADP acts as a centralized platform for data published on Arab countries.

The Arab Development Portal targets a diverse base of end-users interested in development issues and the Arab region. It adheres to knowledge-seekers, namely development practitioners, researchers, academics, students, policy-makers, development agencies, journalists, etc.

The ADP is an open platform, and there are many services (data visualization, export, access to publications, etc.) that do not require of users to register. However, users are requested to register if they wish to post publications, events, blogs and comments.